For a moment he paused, keenly aware that he would be sending hundreds of unsuspecting British sailors to a watery grave. A student of history himself, he understood full well that this attack was on the personal order of the President, but against a country that he was not even sure was yet at war with Russia. The British mine countermeasures ship sunk in Riga was different. It had been collateral damage and should not have been there in the first place. This was a deliberate and, some might say, unprovoked attack. Chernavin’s indecision was only momentary, though. He looked at his Executive Officer and knew that, if he had wanted to hold off, then he should not have ordered him to confirm it was the British carrier. If he ducked this decision now, the President’s wrath would be implacable. He had little doubt he would end up against a wall and his extended family would never see the outside of the Gulag again.

“Bearing three–three–five. Range, nine thousand meters,” chanted the sonar operator, like a Russian Orthodox priest standing by the iconostasis in an incense-filled church.

“Identity confirmed. Stand by to fire,” Chernavin said to his Fire Controller.

Krasnokamensk continued to slide silently under the waves.

“Shoot.”

There was a perceptible thump throughout the submarine as the first torpedo left its tube; a pause, then another, and then a third.

“Torpedoes away . . . Ten degrees down on the planes! Hard a starboard!” ordered Chernavin. “Take her down to one hundred meters,” he told the planesmen.

The submarine tilted steeply as it dived deep and right to avoid detection. Then, as it stabilized, there was silence again in the control room as they waited for the inevitable.

The sonar operators heard the rapid, rhythmical thud of Queen Elizabeth’s giant propellers change note as the torpedoes were spotted and she desperately began to take evasive action.

Too little and too late, Chernavin thought, as the sophisticated torpedoes latched on to their vast, slow turning target. It might evade one, but it stood no chance against three. Chernavin prayed silently. Let there be no malfunctions. The consequences of failure were more terrifying than the guilt that would come with success.

Then, audible to every crewmember of the submarine, was a muffled explosion. The first torpedo had struck home. Another pause, then another two explosions.

The sonar operator now chanted the litany of death: “Explosion . . . Second explosion . . . Third explosion.”

In the earphones of the sonar operators, the thud of Queen Elizabeth’s propellers stopped, to be replaced by the screams of collapsing bulkheads.

PART TWO

Recovery

2230 hours, Friday, June 2, 2017

Prime Minister’s Office, House of Commons, London

TREV WALKER KNOCKED on the door of the functional, if cramped, office used by the Prime Minister in the Palace of Westminster and walked in. As he did so, that much-quoted line of Harold Wilson, a former Labour prime minister, came to mind: “A week is a long time in politics.”